The Christmas Truce of 1914

Western Front (WW1)
Written By John Casey

In the small town of Messines in Belgium, a small memorial commemorates when two opposing armies came together not to fight but to extend Christmas goodwill under an unofficial truce. It was Christmas 1914 on the Western Front and five months into the Great War (World War 1).

Christmas Truce Memorial, Messines, Belgium

Initially, the truce was to give each side time to recover and bury their dead from ‘no mans land’ between the trenches. On Christmas eve, in some sections, German soldiers set up Christmas trees, lit candles and began singing carols. In the British positions, sometimes only 30 or 40 metres away, they began singing Christmas carols in reply. Each side would applaud the other. On Christmas Day, tentative steps were made to come out from the safety of their trenches, to meet each other in the middle. Here they exchanged greetings, in some cases, gifts and, in other cases, later in the day, a football match was arranged. Later that Christmas night, they returned to their trenches to continue the war.

The truce did not happen everywhere as officers on both sides felt that any truce would undermine their men’s fighting spirit. Unfortunately, there were casualties on that Christmas day.

Today we can only look back at this moment in time when ‘goodwill to all men’ gave a short respite from the horrors that were part of the Great War.

John Casey
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